


Kabbe Kronicles

by PsiFie



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Gen, a lot this is old, dnd backstory for one of my characters, dw, enemies to dad, only reason Im posting it is because I want it all in one place, will update fics later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:55:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23507977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsiFie/pseuds/PsiFie
Summary: A hermit living in a light house believes he is being tormented by a little shadowy curse.





	1. Kabbe Kreeps

The lighthouse keeper froze in his tracks as he saw a puddle of still water trailing down from his window and across the sink to a little creature. Surely, it must just be a thought, a figment—such a thing could not exist. Swaddled in seaweed and shadow, it huddled on his far kitchen countertop, inspecting his mortar and pestle. In sharp, little claws, it turned the stone tool over, and clanked the two together once, then twice. 

The creature turned to look at him when he staggered forward to get a better look at it. It seemed to have a head with no eyes, and a strange headdress made of seaweed and good-sized crab. It wasn’t like anything he’d seen or heard of—it was neither anything like kuo-toa, or triton. Just darkness, an inky, swirling black void, with nothing inside. 

And then it threw itself out the nearby window. On skinny, wobbly little legs, the creature dashed down his cliff and into darkness, ‘til he couldn’t see it anymore, leaving the lighthouse keeper feeling mystified and lost. Over the past few days, he’d noticed the upturned furniture, missing objects and puddles of water, but he’d become so used to the mundanity of seclusion that he had never thought he’d get such an unusual visitor.

The thieving little shadow-thing returned, so he began attempting to catch it. First, he tried to trap it under his boat but it slipped out—which was to be expected, it wasn’t a very secure trap. He then fashioned a cage of spare wire and lured the little nightmare into it with an unusual vegetable, but even after catching it, it just phased out between the bars, taking his dinner with it. He had to eat oatmeal that night, instead of nice loaf of zucchini bread he’d planned. Next, after a few tries, he managed to confine it to a hemp bag for a minute or two—only for it to somehow slip out through the top, leaving nothing but seaweed and a flopping dead fish behind. It’s behaviors grew even bolder and more infuriating as the lighthouse keeper’s spices, tools, pots and pans slowly disappeared from his house—if this continued much longer, then he might not be able to cover it’s thievery with his yearly paycheck. 

And then, one day he caught the creatures‘s little hands going through his bedside drawer. They’d had his box of letters, keepsakes and medals out on the table. It scampered past him as he dashed forward, checking the mess desperately. 

But it was no use—it was gone. *His locket was gone.* 

It was then the lighthouse keeper understood the true nature of the creature—some demon, sent by an old enemy to *spite* him. A curse, to make his already miserable, lonely life even worse. And now it dared to take things precious to him. Well, he wouldn’t have that. 

Throwing on his hat and picking up a shovel, he followed the horrid little creature out into the stormy evening. In the dim light, he saw it standing at by the edge of one of the cliffs, and in a flash of lightning, saw a glint of his stolen pendant in it’s hand. Tilting it’s head, it slowly regarded his pendant—*admired* it. Gripping the shovel a little harder, the lighthouse keeper charged forward and swung as hard as he could. 

He didn’t expect to his hit to connect so cleanly, with the sound of crushing shell and a splatter of blue blood. The man’s weight carried through so well that he smacked the creature right off the cliff—and unfortunately, slipping on the wet stone, he went down with it.

His fall was brief and terrifying, and he hit the water hard. Following instinct, he found himself desperately paddling to keep his head above water. All of a sudden, the lighthouse keeper understood that he very much did Not Want To Die, but the force of the tide, further agitated by the storm, threatened to dash him against the jagged edge of the cliff. As he struggled to get his bearings, he felt a great force coming up from underneath him.

It was some *wall of fish*. They were dreadful—some decomposing, rotting, others freshly killed. Their blood turned the water dark in his hands, and he tried to push away from them—but it was impossible. As a great, stinking tide, they pushed him under the water, and he shut his eyes tightly as the ragged bodies swarmed around him, certain to drown him.

And then, he felt the pelting of rain on his coat. With a groan, the lighthouse keeper rolled over, slowly regaining his bearings. Opening his eyes, he found himself on the rocky shore not far from the cliffs he called home. Movement caught his eye—tiny periwinkles rolled out of his coat, returning to the water. Then a cool-blue muscle shell flopped out, rolling down the stone, and a crab scuttled away from him. After standing, he dumped a few sardines from his soaked boots, before solemnly watching the sea crash against the rocks. For a second, he thought he spotted dark shape shrouded in seaweed watching him back from the sea—but in the encroaching darknesss and choppy waves, it could have be no more than a shadow. 

Exhaustion hung heavily on his eyes as he trudged back to his lighthouse. He had no energy make it up to the narrow lighthouse stairs and light the signal. He barely had enough energy to shrug out of his sopping wet clothes and into the thin covers of his bed. 

He finally awoke when the sun was high. The events seemed dreamlike until his rose his head, and saw the mess he’d made of his bedroom while looking for the...

The pendant. While it might was gone, he still had his life. 

It almost didn’t matter. He hadn’t felt like such a failure in a long, long time.


	2. Kabbe Kapture

———————

The next day, when his boots were dry and his house was cleaned, the lighthouse keeper packed his bags for a trip into town. It was a day and a half’s walk on a narrow path, and the lighthouse keeper liked it that way. This time, the walk wasn’t too bad—with his recently-dried coat pulled up over his face to protect him from the cold, sharp wind coming off the sea, he was at the town soon. 

The Wizard Jenkin’s house was a simple building with a shoddy sign, and a patronage composing mostly of other odd people. Currently, there was noone in the store but some teenager running the cash register, who, upon hearing the lighthouse keeper’s request, went upstairs to fetch his boss. The wizard, a fair, young-looking man with dark hair, greeted the lighthouse keeper with a smile, which the older man returned with a huff. In as few words as possible, he laid out his situation—that there was a small, likely demonic creature, all shadows, tormenting his house and him. The wizard expertly feigned concern, and went out back to get a small vial of some sooty substance. * Magic Chalk*, he claimed, and when arranged into a special symbol, it could trap any creature, once that creature was fully into it. 

It was perfect. Paying for the item and a draft of the trapping circle with the few silver he had on him, he went down into the marketplace to purchase things he couldn’t get at home. Replacement pans and tools, fresh fruit, spices. Sugar, too. Hearing the chattering of townsfolk seeking deals, looking at the light blue label on the sugar jar... calmed him. Right, the rest of the world went on, no matter how his own was torn apart by the dreadful nuisance plaguing him. 

Then he noticed a few people noticing *him*—pointing, and speaking in hushed tones about the recluse lighthouse keeper so few knew anything about. Right, time to move on. Packing his purchases securely in his bag, he began the trek back home.

He found his little house in disarray the likes of which he’d never seen before. Things didn’t seem *missing* this time, just... everywhere. The creature had even gone through the effort of pulling shelves away from the wall. Quietly setting down hs pack and walking into the living room, he found it curled up, totally still, on *his* couch. The *gall.* 

He grabbed it by the back of it’s shell, and the creature proceeded to awake in a blur, slip out of his grasp, and scramble out through the window, knocking over a vase in it’s wake. Frowning, the man stared out the window after it. *Enjoy your last day of freedom, little curse.*

After righting and cleaning as much as he could, the fisherman slept for the night. In the morning, he set up his trap at the doorway, following the instructions to the letter. The chalk laid down, he grabbed one of his old medals, he left it precisely in the center. The bait was set.

Out on the water that day, he caught a great, black fish. It was a good omen. Paddling back to the shore, he tied his skiff back up and hung the fish outside before trudging the long walk up back to his house. Upon opening the door, he felt a small smile coming to his face.

A lump seaweed sat in the entrance, right the middle of his trap. Even better, his house was still tidy. The creature must’ve gone straight for the bait. It trembled slightly as he approached, and knelt down near it. Taking in a deep breath, he reached over to lift the seaweed.

The amorphous shadow ducked behind it, trying to hide from him. It was frustrating, he never had the chance to get a proper long look at the thing until now. Setting the seaweed down, he lit his oil lamp. Since he’d let it go, vaguely humanoid arms and feet formed from the lump, pulling and pushing at the walls of it’s magic prison. Yet, frustratingly, he still couldn’t see the center. 

As he once more tried to pull back the seaweed to get a better look at it, it attempted to hide itself in the gaps between the seaweed. The creature was frustratingly good at dodging out of the light of his lantern, all the while scrabbling desperately at the edge of the ring whenever it got the chance. Eventually, the shadowy being turned on him, throwing the seaweed it had been hiding behind over his lantern and grappling onto his arm. It weighed very little. It tried once, twice, to claw him, but it’s shadowy claws had no effect. Forming large, triangular white teeth, it tried to gnaw on his arm too—but it didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt at all.

It’s not hard to pull the seaweed off the lantern. As he saw the shadowy creature scramble for cover and *cower* from the light, the man began to feel... uncomfortable. 

There was no glory, no triumph at having finally captured his little curse—just a a desperate creature in a trap, and a briny man standing over it. It tried once more to scrape at the chalk, then... gave up. It just sat there, in a quivering little pile of seaweed and sadness. Impulse won out over the lighthouse keeper’s better judgement. 

With a dull scraping noise, the lighthouse keeper dragged the toe of his boot through the chalk line containing the creature. As he took two steps away from his trap, the blob froze in place, before reaching a small hand tentatively though the break in the circle. Within seconds, the creature had scurried out of the trap, out of the house and out of the lighthouse keeper’s life. 

...

Only for two weeks, of course.

—————


	3. Kabbe Kompany

The creature appears again in his window sill one day. He sees it while he’s cleaning dishes. It watches him silently, without moving an inch. 

He lets it be, and it leaves. It returns the next day. 

The little creature watches him as he eats, and briefly, he watches it. However, it makes no threatening moves, so he lets it be. A small hand drifts between the cracks in the bottom of his window, and flips the lock, before slowly sliding it open with the rasping sound of warped wood on wood. Sticking it’s head through, the creature keeps it’s face pointed right at the lighthouse keeper as it tenderly sets a foot inside the house, then the other. 

It stands in his kitchen and watches him. It’s face is no more then an abyss, a black hole from which no light escapes. It’s like there’s a little gap in reality and it’s staring at him from his kitchen. 

The creature takes one step towards the cabinet, then another. Then it throws the door open and jumps into it and starts banging and clanging the pots and pans around and he opens the door to find seaweed and wet little footsteps all over his cooking ware and he chases the creature out of his house with a wave of his hand. 

It returns after two days this time. It watches him from the window again, silently. Then the next day, it slips into his house. Silent and still, it watches him eat, and then watches him wash dishes and read after dinner. Sitting on a stack of books, he notices as the creature grows unusually still. He stands, and it doesn’t move at all. 

When he returns to the room in the morning, it’s curled up in the same place. After waking, it proceeds to follow him around as he does his morning chores. As he prepares to go fishing, it doesn’t climb into his boat, though, preferring instead to slip into the sea. However, as he reels up a fish, he finds that it’s likely swimming in the sea around him, watching as a suspect patch of seaweed drifts by against the current. 

It returns the next day at evening. It follows him up into the lighthouse tower, and hides behind him as he lights it. It cowers from the light, yet seems transfixed by the sight of it. It’s quick to trail after him when he leaves, though. 

The creature being around becomes routine. The lighthouse keeper begins talking to his little curse. He’d yelled at it before, screamed at it, scolded it, but it never seemed to listen. It’s much the same now, like talking to an animal, or an inanimate object. The shadow makes shit company—it’s clear it never cares what he actually says. But, when it’s slunk back into to the sea, the lighthouse keeper finds he misses it. Similarly, the creature begins to test it’s boundaries. It seeks out the replacements the lighthouse keeper bought and looks at them, turning them over and rubbing it’s claws against them. The lighthouse keeper doesn’t know where it finds such interest, but as long as it’s not destroying or stealing things, he won’t stop it. 

It takes one of his books down off the shelf one day. With it’s finger, it traces the lines on the paper, then in the drawings. It just stares at the drawings for a long, long time, before marching outside with determination. The lighthouse keeper follows it. 

It’s standing out in the yard, in a dirt patch. With a stick, it’s tracing shapes in the dry dirt. 

The lighthouse keeper feels himself smiling as it works single-minded, and full of passion. It leaps around, twirling it’s stick and connecting line after line. Slowly, the slopes and twists evolve into a depiction of great whale, far larger than the little curse itself. 

So it’s a little artist. *Who would’ve thought that.*


	4. Kabbe Kastaway

And then it disappears for a week. 

A heavy storm sweeps through area, waves crashing loudly against the cliffs below. The lighthouse keeper has to stay bottled up in his house for two days, and the creature never returns in that time. By the third day, he expects it to come stumbling through the window at any moment. On the forth, he’s expecting it to be waiting for him when he comes back to his house at night. On the fifth he keeps thinking he spots it out on the water—only for it to be nothing. 

On the sixth he looks for it, running his little boat around the area he fishes in. He walks along of the coast for a while, only to find nothing but a disgruntled traveler who wants nothing to do with him and insists she hasn’t seen the little creature. By the seventh day, he expects never to see it again.

And on the eighth day, it’s standing in his doorway that evening, shivering and staring at him as he eats his dinner. The lighthouse keeper drops his wooden spoon right into his soup with a plorp. It bobs to the surface, ignored, as the man walks over to the doorway to greet the wayward shadow. 

The creature looks up at him, form wavering unusually. It seems distressed. Almost confused, he bends down and gives it a one-armed hug, because really, it is a *little* creature and it just seems like the right thing to do. The curse gives him a hug in return, wrapping it’s skinny little arms around his neck. Without resistance, he picks it up, but it only seems to get... goopier? He’s struggling to hold it, as it seems to be dripping through it’s shell and seaweed body, so he grabs his coat and scoops it up in that before carrying it to the living room.

Sitting on his one and only cushioned chair, he really has no idea what to do. Having wrapped itself up in his coat, the creature has only gotten mushier and more formless since it returned, and shows no sign of stopping. Tentatively, he sets a rough hand on top of the coat, approximately where creatures back should be, and feels it shivering slightly. He pets it like a cat. The trembling diminishes over a short period of time, but the creature stays formless. 

He hears something odd, and thinks that it’s coming from outside—until he realizes the noise is coming from the creature he’s holding. It’s a short melody, one he’s never heard before. On the third repeat, the creature says what’s clearly *words* for the song instead of just humming it. The odd little lullaby has something to do with the setting sun, the sea, and sleep. It’s eerie, and calming, and fades out slowly.

Now the little shadow seems to be asleep. Which means logically, he should probably put it to bed now. Thing is, he only has one of those in the house. Standing, he sets the creature down carefully before clearing some knickknacks off the top of one of the shorter bookshelves. 

He walks back and finishes his now-cold dinner, and wonders as to what the hell his life has become and when did it start revolving around a creature with no voice and no face that barely comes up to his knees. 

Finally, he understands that it was likely never a curse. It was just some... little, thing, from nowhere, that found him somehow. 

Okay then. Okay.


	5. Kabbe Konfusing

The little creature sticks to him like glue after that. No more disappearing for hours, it stays by his side like some weird little guard dog. It actually climbs into his boat, it stays afloat in for the entire trip.

Which is to say, it gets bored. It seems the creature has a hyperactive streak, and staying in one place for so long makes it antsy. It’s always doing something—watching him fish, splashing it’s feet in the water, or carefully inspecting his catches. It smacks him with a fish several times before he gets it to stop.

Not long after that, he learns the little nightmare carries a gift for *necromancy* of all things when it toys with the body of one of the fishes he caught, bringing it back to life to flop around for a bit before undoing what it did. The realization freaks the hell of him briefly, before he decides he doesn’t care that much, actually. It does explain some things—how it’s body seems to be made out of the shells of different sea life, and how it may have saved him that one time with a wall of dead fish.

And the lighthouse keeper notices that it seems to be *listening* to him—just not responding. When he calls to it, it turns his head to him. He’s taken to calling it ‘little shadow’, as his former ways to refer to it seemed too insulting, and naming it was far too presumptuous. 

One night, while the creature is aimlessly flipping through his books, he gives reading out loud to it a try. It stops what it’s doing and lifts up it’s head to stare at him, then crawls a little closer, climbing up to the arm of his chair. It leans against him and stares at nothing in particular as it listens to him speak. 

Surely, it’s not just interested by the sound, is it? But he has no way of telling if it’s actually following or not. Eventually, it ceases it’s fidgeting and grows still, and he sets it in the improvised bed he made for it. 

Weeks pass, and the creature is always close by. There’s more fishing trips, reading, and meals. It’s not quite as clingy as before—sometimes, it’ll disappear for an hour or two, but he’s finding it regularly shows up for meals, and it’s taken to sleeping in it’s little shelf-bed. He doesn’t know why it’s chosen to stay with him, but he doesn’t want to kick it out. Sure, it’s a horrible houseguest, but it doesn’t seem to know any better. It’s just a little idiot.


	6. Kabbe Krafts

Frustrated, the lighthouse keeper wrestles the brush out of it’s hand. “If you’re not going to take this *seriously,* little shadow, then you can’t help.” He prattles to it. “The ships need it painted a certain way so they can tell which lighthouse we are—it’s important for navigation,” he explains. The little creature just stares at him, then proceeds to jump for the brush, knocking into his side. The impact nearly knocks him off the ladder, and he sighs a breath of relief as he regains his balance, only for the ladder itself to start to slip. 

It falls, and he *just* barely catches himself as it clangs to the ground. He’s about to cus out the little curse when it snatches the brush out hand, rights the ladder, and scrambles up, splashing white paint across the stripe of black. He groans as the creature drags a wavelike streak of white across his hard work, and begins to dot little fish underneath it. 

Standing up and cracking his shoulders, the man lifts up the ladder with the shadow still up at the top, and laughs as it scrambles for a purchase and hisses at him. 

“STOP THAT!!!” It yells. 

The lighthouse keeper almost drops the ladder. As the little shadow desperately clings to the top rung, he holds it as steady as he can, muscles aching with the effort. For a solid few seconds, he just gapes at the creature, before he finds words. “Since when could you *talk?” He sputters.

It ignores him, instead opting to stretch out it’s skinny little arm and try to hit the lighthouse with another blob of paint. The lighthouse keeper frowns, tilting it away from the wall, and the creature waves the brush back and forth in frustration, flicking paint all over the cliff.

“STOP THAT! I will paint it like THIS!!!” It exclaims. “It will mirror like the SEA back to it and it will be very big and much nicer and not go away!!”

“Stupid little creature. Lighthouse aren’t made to reflect the sea—they’ve got to look very different. It’s a beacon, to ships, to tell them where they are and not to crash into the peninsula here. It’s got a *purpose,*” He argues, “and I’ve got a job. Now get helping or get down and get lost.”

The creature stops its wriggling, focusing on him. “You make no SENSE!” It yells back, in it’s scratchy, alien voice. And then it throws the paintbrush at him. The brush bounces off his head, smearing white onto his hat, and he reflexively lets go of the ladder. It falls backwards and clangs into the wall, smearing the wet black paint into the white below and dragging harsh lines through all of the shadow’s drawing. The creature, too, loses it’s balance falls to the ground itself with a harsh *crack*. 

It’s silhouette is shaking like the time it came home after disappear for a week. The loose circle composing it’s head is facing the sea. Little fists clench dirt on the ground. Kneeling, the lighthouse keeper places a firm hand on the creature’s back. It seems the shell it was wearing snapped in the fall, as a large crack runs across the back, showing nothing but more darkness underneath. Sighing, he pats it on the shell, and it leans into his side. 

The lighthouse is a proper mess now. There’s parts of the little shadow’s drawing smeared, partially covered doodles, and the stripes he was supposed to fill are all askew. Letting it try help with this was disastrous. 

But now he knows it can talk, and it can *listen.* Which makes reassuring the thing slightly easier.

“It’s alright. Things’ve just got to be this way, little shadow. Listen—you can paint the outside of my house if you want—or the roof?” He shrugs, and it doesn’t respond. “...why don’t we get some dinner. I’ll finish out here in a bit.” The creature seems to acknowledge that. Gloomily, it stands, tying the seaweed around it’s waist, and trudging into the house, arms hanging. It lounges, head laying flat on the kitchen table as he heats some soup for it. The food seems to do it a little good, as it seems to have cheered up slightly by the time he starts reading to it, and it climbs into it’s box to sleep like normal.

Still no more talking, though.


	7. Kabbe Kalligraphy

The compromise went fine—the little shadow decorated the walls of his house, while he fixed and finished the tower of the lighthouse. Without any help, the painting took forever, but so was to be expected. And now, schools of fish and pods whales of whales swam through choppy waves and swaying seaweed all along the side of his house while simple crustaceans scuttled across the sandy floor. 

It knew the sea well. How long had the creature been down there?

Perhaps long enough to forget it’s own words. The creature doesn’t speak again after that, but the hermit can see that it has different ways of communicating. It tugs on his coat to get his attention, and clearly remembers his schedule—it climbs into his boat when it’s time to fish, and waits at the table when it’s time to eat. It’s never picky when it comes to food, but it clearly likes the vegetables from his tiny garden the best. It also loves cooked foods.

It keeps little weird collections next to it’s bed, piled up. A feather pen, a spoon, a shell, and some little folded paper sea animals he showed it how to make. An old friend in his brigade showed him how to make them long ago, and he never thought he’d remember the simple folds to make angular animals. The little creature is fascinated by them, though, unmaking and remaking them. It always wants to be shown how to do everything, and it’s quick learner. 

Except for writing. The creature must’ve picked up calligraphy somewhere, because it’s capable of some of the most elegant script he’s ever seen, far more sophisticated then the hermit’s chickenscratch. However, while it’s able to copy words, sentences and paragraphs, it’s unable to write anything of it’s own. Everything coming out of the pen is nonsensical, letters and words jumbled together in odd ways. The little shadow likes to add text to it’s drawings, filling in blank spaces with the babbling. Perhaps it just likes how it looks.

It’s due to it’s drawing habit that he figures out another clue to the little shadow’s identity. One day, the creature marches into his house tied up in considerably more seaweed then usual. He’s about to stop it from tracking salt water all over the floor when it strides up to the bookcase and tosses his one of his novels directly onto the floor, into a puddle, before taking it’s feather pen and setting into the thing with ink. He sighs, and lets it be. All day, he can’t only get it to budge from it’s work—it only briefly pauses to wolf down it’s soup.

Finally, after it’s long been night, the creature falls asleep curled up on top of it’s book. Lifting the little shadow, the lighthouse keeper sets it in it’s bed and checks the creature’s work. He’s surprised to see it’s drawn a large, detailed image in his book, between the last page and the back cover. It shows a tiny shadowy figure wearing one of the complicated ball gowns shown in the book, nobly holding a scepter in the air, with a tiny crown on it’s head. All around it are fish and crabs and eels and every creature of the sea, kneeling and bowing to their little shadow princess. The raw audacity of the work makes him chuckle—where does her impudence even come from? 

Stupid as it is, he appreciates it. He sets the book by her bed, with the pages open to her hard work, and heads to sleep himself.


	8. Kabbe Kuestions

He cant get her to speak again until storytime one afternoon. In the middle of a tale about wayward prince, she pipes up in that scrawny and alien voice.

“I don’t understand why Marcus didn’t just go home.” Her voice is flat and emotionless, but betrays a little frustration. Quirking an eyebrow, the lighthouse keeper looks down at the little creature. 

“...if someone knows something you don’t, you can always ask a question, you know.”

It’s head tilts up at him and silence lingers. The hermit’s starting to wonder if he should just start reading again when the creature speaks once more. “I don’t know what a question is.” It repeats, in a irritated fashion that just begs the question. The lighthouse keeper coughs out a laugh, but the little shadow only looks more frustrated, so he decides to humor it.

“You take a phrase and raise your voice at the end a little—and put where, what, who or why in there. Do you know those words?” He asks. The shadow doesn’t respond for a half second, squeezing the arm of the chair. 

“Yes.” She says. Then she pauses, staring intently at his book. Enough time passes that the hermit doesn’t know what to do, so he continues to read, only for her to stop him. “Why didn’t Marcus go home?” She looks up at him.

“His father, the king, wouldn’t have that. He was supposed to stay out in the woods until his quest was complete, but he went to the nearby town instead, so he never found the Heart of the Hart.” The little shadow stares at him, before excitedly smacking the book to tell him to keep reading. The lighthouse keeper gives her a pat on the head and finishes the chapter. Then, he speaks up himself.

“Why didn’t you speak before?”

He never thought it would be possible to see the little creature so uncomfortable. It fiddles with the little crab in it’s hand, making it run in figure eights along the arm of the chair before it trips and falls to the ground. As it scuttles back of the sides, she finally responds.

“There wasn’t any point. I could talk and talk and nobody would listen. Nobody would play chess with me, nobody wanted to look at my drawings. Why didn’t they listen to me?” She asks back. 

“...who?” He asks. She looks frustrated. 

“The fishes! And the eels, and crabs, and whales, and sharks and dolphins and squids and anemones and coral. They never, *ever* listened.“ She grumbles, tugging on the leg of the little crab in her hand. “So I stopped talking.”

It sounds like she was very lonely. Frustrated, the hermit begrudges whatever made and abandoned the little shadow. “I’ll listen to you.” 

The little shadow goes quiet, thinking about that. Then she nods—“you should,” she boldly states, “because I have lots of questions and important things to tell you.” The lighthouse keeper just laughs at her obnoxiousness. He’s glad that she has a person to talk to now.


	9. Kabbe Konversations

Now it’s hard to get the little shadow to stop talking. She has LOTS of questions. Questions about why they eat three times a day, where vegetables come from, why the sea doesn’t rise up and cover the land, who is on the ships that the lighthouse guides, why animals can’t talk, and a million, billion questions about the world described in books the lighthouse keeper owns. The hermit is made readily aware that a number of these questions he has absolutely no answer to. So sometimes he just makes stuff up. 

It takes two days for the questions to peter out, leaving the little shadow to come to conclusions on it’s own for while. Then, the hermit finds that he has another question for the little thing.

“Can you see me?” It’s always been peculiar how the little shadow has been able to see and hear him, yet it’s face is completely blank. 

“See? To look? I can look with my hands,” Says the creature, but the lighthouse keeper shakes his head as she reaches out and plays with a spoon, running her thumb along the simple filigree. “I see swirls and ridges like little trenches but fancy and symmetrical.” 

“No, I mean seeing with eyes.” He taps on the ones on his own face, and she brightens up instantly. 

“Oh!!! Yes the fishy eyes! I couldn’t see until I came up from the bottom and saw while I was fishy. I thought it was very nice so I made it myself! It took a long time to get them any good but they’re okay. I like the colors,” She waves a hand in front of her face. “It’s very fun and good!”

The lighthouse keeper studies her face, but it looks just like the same empty, voidlike abyss as always. “...I don’t see any. Your eyes aren’t visible?”

“Hmmmmm....” The little shadow pulls the floppy old hat the hermit gave her over her face, then yanks it back up. There’s two wobbly white spots on her face, with two black spots within them. It looks vaguely like eyes, but the lighthouse keeper laughs at the sight—her dull pupils drift about aimlessly, wobbling with the movement of her head. It looks so silly. 

“The pupils—that’s the black part of the eye—you don’t really have them right. They don’t wobbly like that, they follow, uh... the line of sight? Like, the direction you look.”

She wobbles her head from side to side, but it doesn’t seem like she can get them working right. She shakes her head fiercely, and the pupils wink out, leaving behind round pure white eyes. The thing tilts her head, and the lighthouse keeper can read a great curiosity in her gaze as she looks at him, and he gives her a smile. 

“That’s perfect. You’re adorable,” he says. “I’m sure if you ever meet someone else, they’ll find you much less unsettling.”

“Adorable?” She doesn’t seem to understand. But that’s okay.


End file.
